


The Small Braveries of Miss Anabel Giles

by Jay Tryfanstone (tryfanstone)



Category: The Rosemary Tree - Elizabeth Goudge
Genre: 1950s, Be The First 2018, Courage, England (Country), Friendship, Gen, Older Women, faith - Freeform, journeys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 07:37:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14256111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryfanstone/pseuds/Jay%20Tryfanstone
Summary: The Rosemary Treeis a novel (as so many of Elizabeth Goudge's adult novels) of faith, friendship and gardens. In it, Miss Giles, the dreaded and dreadful schoolmistress, ill and depressed, begins the process of redeeming herself.Small Braveriestakes up her story five years later.





	The Small Braveries of Miss Anabel Giles

Miss Giles checked her hat was firmly pinned, straightened her gloves, and ensured her handbag was firmly clasped. It would be an act of cowardice, she believed, to check that the letter was still in her possession, for to do so would be to distrust herself, and although the Miss Giles of five years ago had laboured without faith or hope the Miss Giles of today was a woman who had learned trust. She gave a brisk nod to the maid Annie, who despite the early hour was holding open the front door pink-checked and freshly starched, and walked purposely down the steps of the little Regency house that had so improbably become her own dame-school. The two classrooms were empty and their desks set tidily against the walls, for it was the first day of July, and the little girls whose heads bent over their schoolwork with angelic purpose every weekday morning had fled into the wonder of a Devonshire summer. Miss Giles herself, inexplicably shackled to the ominous appointments of a London solicitor, walked into the morning bolstered by a new and businesslike hat, a peaceful digestive system, and an astonished joy in life and the living of it that shone for her new-minted as a fresh struck sovereign.

Beyond the church spire, dawn flushed the sky with gold. The houses of the small Georgian square, with their arched windows and carriage steps, looked in the haze of first light as elegant as they must have looked when built, a hundred years before. The horses and carriages were long gone, and it was the battered vicarage car which waited for Miss Giles with one wheel on the curb and one teetering on the edge of the flowerbed. The Reverend John Wentworth of Belmaray, still alight with the possibilities of a new day, opened the passenger door and handed her inside with all the gravity of a knight squiring his lady. Inured to the car's loose springs and uneven horizon, Miss Giles nodded her thanks. John, she thought, would never loose his boyish shyness around women, but the careful courtesy with which he shielded his fear was a reassurance in itself. 

"Daphne has sent messages," John said, struggling with the arcane matter of starting the car. A shadow was already falling over the day. "Blackcurrants, I think. And crab-apple jelly?" The worry of forgetting had creased his forehead.

Miss Giles, a woman of perception, saved him from himself. "I believe it's jam making season," she said. "I'd be glad to take the girls." Margary, of course, was her own particular joy, but Winkle with her sweet charm and thin, clever Pat were just as welcome. 

"That's it!" John said, relieved. The car shuddered into life, the hand-brake proffered a relieving groan, and the post-box on the corner was avoided by a hair's breadth. His wife Daphne was a far better driver and would have been a soberer and safer escort, but it was with a deep understanding of each other's tribulations that Miss Giles and the vicar set forth through the narrow streets of Silvertown.

"It's unfair to schedule Pat's tutorial for the same day," Miss Giles said. "The children are on holiday, and Annie's brother might be persuaded to take us out on the boat." Sailing meant a day of incipient sea-sickness for Miss Giles, but there was little she would not assay for John and Daphne's children. 

Land-bound like all the adult Wentworths, John offered her a silent commiseration. Pressed into service as boiler-man and jar-steriliser, sweating in the stuffy, damp heat of the vicarage kitchen, his day too loomed with horror. They would both endure. The pantry would be lined with the gleaming gold and scarlet preserves of summer fruit. Daphne would be content, John humbled, Miss Giles bilious, the children speechless with joy and adventure, when there was so little time left for them to be children. It was Pat's last year at school, and, clever, self-contained, and in defiance of the traditions of the Wentworth men, she would be applying to Cambridge. 

Miss Giles and John, fully aware of the direction of each other's thoughts, shared both hope and trepidation. Together they negotiated the narrow bridge over the river, and swerved, incautiously sprightly, past the cob cottages and the corrugated steel hut of the Brethren Meeting. Doubt, of the theological variety, descended. 

"Pat will do very well," Miss Giles said swiftly. "I have faith in that child."

John's brow cleared. "It's very good of you to offer to tutor her," he said. 

"I believe that was Pat's idea," said Miss Giles, amused, aware that John had been gently managed by his womenfolk for all of his life. "It's a pleasure to rediscover my textbooks." She had thought the discipline of numbers would be a struggle, but the revival of old skills, in the quiet of her own small sitting room, a fire flickering merrily in her own fireplace and tea and toast to hand, had been a joy.

"I'm still grateful," John said. He drew the car to halt outside the station, managing purely by accident to position them in front of the entrance. The milk-cart behind him was forced to an awkward halt, and Mr. Buchard the taxi driver espied the Vicarage car and, sighing, resigned himself to a scraped skirting board on exit. 

There were white-painted chimney-pots standing on the station steps, filled with cheerful pink geraniums. John stared at them for a moment, switched off the engine, and said, "You know, I could still come with you."

"Thank you," said Miss Giles. "But I believe I shall be all right on my own."

"Then I shall pick you up," said John decisively, and swung out of the car to force open the creaking passenger door, and usher Miss Giles out of the uncomfortable seat and towards the ticket office. 

She had been a city child, if not of the capital, whose aristocratic singularity had always been regarded with a skeptical eye by her family, but of the industrial heartland, and the prospect of the unfeeling intimacy of crowds and streets bore no terrors. Miss Giles carried a borrowed pocket-map, already marked up with bookshops and teashops, and sufficient funds to carry her through the day with interest. Her new hat was firmly affixed, her gloves barely worn, and as the train whistled into the first tunnel of the journey her reflection showed her the face of a woman who looked perfectly at home in her own skin. Her back was straight, her figure tidy, and her hands well kept. The grey hair coiled and pinned under her hat gleamed with silver highlights, her face was smoothly complexioned, and her eyes were clear and direct. Good food and rest had cured both the distressing acne and the debilitating dyspepsia which had made of her a bitter and angry woman. Trust and compassion, unlooked for and revelatory, had given her own school, and lent her the wisdom to manage it. She looked, to herself, the woman she had not dared to dream of being. Even music had come back to her, in the monthly meetings of Silvertown's choir and its madrigal group, and the concerts to which her friends the O'Hara's gladly bore her company. 

"Anabel Giles," Miss Giles told herself severely, "Cease this dithering. The outcome will fall as it will, and you can and will encompass it."

Her hands tightened on the handbag. The letter within had arrived unlooked-for ten days previously, a letter from the London solicitor who had managed her father's paltry affairs and had also, she assumed, taken on those of her wastrel brothers. It was, in the manner of legal communication, utterly absent of direction, requesting only her attendance in a matter with which she held interest. Miss Giles, who had as a young woman known there would be no inheritance for her from her father's estate, that money given to her brothers, and that there would be neither fondness nor support from that feckless pair, had failed to determine why Mr. Pettigrew himself, of Pettigrew and Montacute, should desire her presence. Abandoned and furious debtors were to be expected. Neglected issue, indigent spouses, incarceration...possibility after possibility had trailed disgrace and dirty linen across Miss Giles' disciplined mind. It had taken a bracing afternoon tea with the devoted O'Hara's and the well-wrapped bundle of their beloved, red-headed, vocal daughter for her to pull herself together. Michael O'Hara, the charming proprietor of the Silvertown's new bookshop, had passed through his own purgatory of disgrace and redemption and survived. Miss Giles girded her loins, sent her acceptance, and travelled supported by Annie's unexpected and perfectly cooked boiled egg and toast, Michael's carefully annotated map, and John's absent-minded and steadfast companionship. 

The London train sped from the first tunnel into the sudden unveiling of sunshine. The fields were green with springing wheat, the embankments crowded with wildflowers, and the variegated landscape of England pretended, as it did so well, to timeless and bucolic watercolour, with oak trees. Miss Giles, armoured and comfortably alone in her compartment, requested tea, and extracted her pocket Euclid. 

Frome passed in a haze of geometry. Andover produced a nervous mother and daughter, trousseau-shopping in their best hats. Basingstoke was busier, yielding an elderly doctor and a pair of youthful gentlemen in cycling clothes, with rucksacks, headed for Kings Cross and points north. Cheerfully assured, the train passed Camberley, Staines, Woking, the neat suburban towns with their post-war housing estates, and then into London itself with its battered terraces and allotments. At Paddington, with its great ribbed roof and grey skylights, the train came to a final halt. Miss Giles straightened her gloves, accepted the hand of the doctor in negotiating the carriage steps, and found in the hurried crowd both porter and taxicab. 

The city was a raddled beauty. Rationed, in the course of rebuilding, festooned with hopeful billboards and still littered with the debris of war, she offered her scarred terraces, her tea shops and jazz bars, her busy streets and battered population. Hyde Park was blackened grass and boarded-up tea huts, Marble Arch streaked with soot, Oxford Street gaping with bombed-out absence, buildings neatly shored but yet not replaced. The Strand was a huddle of bars and hotels, blinds drawn against the daylight. Embankment was a wasteland of ruined warehouses. Temple Bar, though, was untouched, the cobbled streets brushed clean and the eighteenth century townhouses whitewashed and brass-plated. The taxicab drew to a halt, Miss Giles calculated her tip and added an extra tuppence, and found herself outside the stern frontage of Pettigrew and Montacute. 

Without hesitation, she lifted the door-knocker.

Mr. Pettigrew was not the dry, elderly man she remembered. The younger Mr. Pettigrew was a six-foot gentleman with the shoulders of a rugby player and a gentle, considerable presence. Taken aback, Miss Giles allowed herself to whisked into an office, tenderly deposited in a comfortable armchair, and provided with a fiercely steaming cup of strong tea. She managed her gratitude with composure, but it was not the reception she expected. 

The armchair opposite was made of strong stuff. Seated, Mr. Pettigrew steepled his fingers and cleared his throat. "I must first apologise, Miss Giles," he said. "Your grandfather...well, my father counselled strongly against his course of action. I believe it is fair to say that our client was a gentleman of old-fashioned views."

"Indeed so," said Miss Giles. She put the empty cup back into the saucer. "A kindly man, all the same, Mr. Pettigrew." 

"I'm glad to hear it," said Mr. Pettigrew. "And indeed, from our point of view, the measures he put in place concerning his estate were not unprecedented. I do not believe he failed to take into account your father's habits. Amongst other bequests, the eldest Mr. Giles' will established a trust. Your father, your eldest brother, and my father, representing Pettigrew and Montacute, were trustees. Over the course of the last forty years, your father, and later your brother, were allowed the use of the interest, but not the capital. With the - I am sorry, Miss Giles - with the demise of your father and both of your brothers, the trust has fallen to the care of the firm, and may therefore be dispersed to yourself as the last remaining beneficiary."

"I'm sorry?" said Miss Giles, faintly.

"It is we who should be apologising to yourself, Miss Giles. Your brother's estate was unexpectedly complicated. There were some months when the distribution of capitol was questionable."

"His debtors," said Miss Giles.

"Yes," said Mr. Pettigrew. "May I pour you some more tea?"

"I would be most grateful," said Miss Giles, and took the domestic interval with its soothing rattle of china as a much needed retrenchment. She took the fresh cup with steady hands. With the younger Mr. Pettigrew, earnest and straightforward, she could be decisive. "What is the situation with my brother's creditors, Mr. Pettigrew?" 

"Most have agreed to take a favourable percentage in the pound," said Mr. Pettigrew, gratifyingly plain. "In a couple of cases, we were forced to tender full reimbursement."

"And the outstanding sum?"

"You have no legal responsibility for your brother's debts," said Mr. Pettigrew firmly. "In fact - let me be frank. My father believed, very strongly, that your grandfather's intent was to provide for all three of his grandchildren. Not two."

"There is enough left to defray the remaining debts," said Miss Giles.

"That would not be my advice," said Mr. Pettigrew. 

"Nonetheless."

"The sun of two thousand pounds would be required," said Mr. Pettigrew. "The trust residue would be in the region of fifteen hundred, after tax."

Miss Giles took a very long breath. "Well," she said, and found that her hands were now not at all steady. Fifteen hundred pounds! Enough, not to purchase her own little school, but to defray a considerable portion of it, perhaps enough to put towards Pat's University fees. Sufficient to put a little aside for the children. More than she had ever dreamed of having, even before it had become clear that her father's investment was in the boys, not in her. If she had known in those miserable years when she had been so painfully cruel to the girls she taught, if she could have escaped then the miserable trap of the old school and the stifling cruelty of its mistress...

If she had fled then, there would have been no dame-school, no little Regency house with its fanlight and polished candlesticks, no friends. No music. She would have left Margary and Pat and Winkle, and the rest of the children, to suffer Mrs. Bellamy alone. Mary O'Hara might have prevailed, that bright flame of a woman, but perhaps not, for there would have been another Miss Giles, perhaps even older and more helpless than herself, subject to Annie's terrible cooking and enacting the Headmistresses' will. For a moment she was back in the sickly-sweet drawing room that was the rotten heart of Mrs. Bellamy's kingdom, and then herself decades earlier, a thin city child sent to the astonishing beauty of the country and the kindness of her grandparents.

"Please make sure the debts are paid," she said, and discovered to her horror that her voice was choked.

"Miss Giles!" said Mr. Pettigrew, and then, "Yes, of course, let me pass you a handkerchief, here, it's clean."

"I am not crying," she said. 

"Indeed not," said Mr. Pettigrew, and tactfully turned away. "Mr. Kenelm! More tea, if you please!"

The paraphernalia of the solicitor's office arrived, was swiftly summarised and signed, and despatched. She refused both escort and taxicab, for once the first shock had passed she felt herself once again the equitable headteacher she had become, and saw no reason to curtail the planned small pleasures of the trip in favour of such unpredictable good fortune. The breeze from the river was bracing, she was fortified by tea that she felt owed more, by a glance at Mr. Kenelm, to the traditions of the East End rather than those of chambers, and the London streets held no fears. Her courage held up beyond Temple Bar, although her mind was slowly entangling itself in great knotted parabola of shock and incredulity, gratitude, memory, relief... Along Walbrook, workmen were clearing away the debris of a bombed out warehouse, as shattered as she felt...there was a railing to hand. She grasped it. A moment or two, and she must regain her composure: her feelings now were nothing akin to the miserable horror of illness.

She was aware of one of the workmen turning to see her, his alert face and her own faint horror at being a figure of pity. There was pavement behind her, and then a heavy door which opened to her touch and produced, in cool harmony, an interior of broad apse, alter, Victorian pews and Georgian stained glass. Miss Giles was not a regular church-goer, but sufficiently informed to find in the sense of sanctuary achieved an ironic thankfulness. She stumbled into the first free seat and allowed herself to rest, directing her thoughts purposely from interior landscape to exterior. The oak pew was softened by a carpet runner, the kneeler at her feet was of faded pink velvet, and there was a ticklish and lingering trace of incense in the air. The church was an elegant and harmonious basilica, the windows tall and thin and the plastered walls whitewashed. It was far from the homely stonework and plain lines of the Belmaray parish church, but there was a familiarity to the quality of silence that Miss Giles found impersonally soothing.

There were present, she thought, rather more people than she would have expected for a weekday lunchtime. The pews nearest the alter were close to crowded, and in front of the alter-rail, there was a semi-circle of empty chairs. The hush was not aimless, but expectant, and soon, directed.

Without fuss, a woman with a violin took her seat, and a moment later was joined by a viola player, a cellist, and then a second violinist, neatly dressed. The viola player plucked a note, a single, rich C, the tenor of it rounded and confident, and a shiver went down Miss Giles' spine.

Then, they played. 

They played Bach, a heartbreaking string quartet, the precision of each note singing through the columns and spaces of the church with mathematical precision and a deep, upwelling joy that swept Miss Giles into the heart of the music. In that encompassing, there was no space for fear. She was part of every note, barely conscious of her own body, all her uncertainty and confusion gladly discarded. 

The quartet ended. Miss Giles drew a breath, the lead violinist shook out her hand, and then, without hesitation, raised her bow again. For a moment Miss Giles was conscious that she was no longer alone in her pew, and then, for a while, there was nothing but the glory of the music. Yet something had changed. She was aware, as she had not been before, of the shadows in the arch of the roof and the hard pew, and of the weight of someone else's presence beside her. Resentful, she turned her head, and realised with horror that the woman sitting next to her, stiffly upright, eyes fixed on the musicians, was in distress. She was a slight woman, a few years younger than Miss Giles, neatly and expensively dressed in a lightweight suit and a silk scarf. Her dark hair was closely cropped, her face of a darker complexion than most Englishwomen, her expression tightly contained, but her gloved hands were gripped so tightly in her lap the strain in the leather was quite evident. Although she was motionless and Miss Giles did not consider herself, heaven forbid, a sensitive woman, the very air between them seemed to carry a sodden charge so inwardly absorbing that the music could not prevail against its force.

Resentment, familiar and curdled, made itself known to Miss Giles, that this stranger should steal from her the joy of the music, and then a paralysing shame at her own lack of compassion. If John had come to her, as he should have done, with justifiable rage at the damage she had done to his daughters, instead of the understanding and support he had brought, she would have been lost indeed. And if John could bring such compassion to a stranger, how could she do less? Yet she shrank from the thought of it - of reaching out, of laying herself bare to a stranger's contempt, or worse, if by reaching out she made that distress worse. Dreadfully, she wished John was there, or even Winkle, for no-one could resist that ten-year-old Wentworth charm combined with the delight of her sweetly rounded face and ruffled petticoats, but there was only Miss Giles, who had passed the age of ruffled petticoats a very long time ago indeed and who felt she had not given a moment's good advice in her life.

She herself both dreaded and resented pity. "My dear," Miss Giles said, placing herself carefully in the position of supplicant, "Might I ask your help?"

For a moment she thought she had not been heard, or been ignored, and flinched at the thought of trying again, but the woman blinked, and turned to look at her. She had, Miss Giles realised, intensely attractive eyes, a deep, rich brown, with long, dark eyelashes and heavy eyebrows, and although her face was tight with strain she had the unconscious poise of a woman who both knew and ignored the impact of her own beauty. 

"Are - are you well?" she asked quietly.

"Thank you," said Miss Giles, low-voiced against the music. "Perfectly well. But I have had a shock today, and have found myself less resilient than expected. I do not know the area well. Is there a tearoom or hotel nearby?" 

"The Salter hotel is just up the street," the woman said. 

She had, Miss Giles thought, the careful precision of someone for whom English was not a first language. "I'll try there," said Miss Giles. "Thank you." She checked her hat and found her handbag, too proud, she found, to fumble or hesitate, although she was stiffer than anticipated and had to steady herself on the pew when she stood. 

"Are you sure you're well?" said the woman. She was paying attention now, and there was a consciousness in her face that had not been there before. "Can I help?"

For a good cause, Miss Giles firmly embraced the entitlement of the well-dressed elderly. "If you were heading in that direction," she said, "I would be grateful for the company. My name is Giles. Miss Giles, of Silvertown, in Devonshire."

"Miss Mukherjee." 

"Thank you, Miss Mukherjee," said Miss Giles, and accepted the proffered helping hand with a grateful smile.

Miss Mukherjee, it was immediately obvious, was not in the best of immediate health herself, with a fine and, Miss Giles thought, temporary tremor evident in her grip. They made an unstable pair, Miss Giles still stiff and Miss Mukherjee with her distress well hidden. It was with some relief that Miss Giles realised there was a warden at the church door to ease their exit, and from the church steps she could see the wide windows of the hotel. 

The last thread of music stretched thin with the closing door, and was gone. 

"It is not just the solace of a cup of tea," Miss Giles said. "I have always thought the ritual itself, the teapot, the hot water, the straining of the leaves, a tradition comforting in its familiarity."

"I'm afraid I'm more inclined towards Horlicks," said Miss Mukherjee apologetically.

They were nearly at the hotel steps. Miss Giles racked her brains for an excuse that would find Miss Mukherjee safely placed where she could regain her composure, and in the process realised that it had been many years since she had entered a hotel alone. Never, as the responsible party. But she was Headmistress Giles now, respected and recognised. The doorman, uniformed, tipped his hat to them. 

"Although, solace has a ring to it, I think," said Miss Mukherjee. "Odd how one imagines that the surrounds of any particular building might offer consolation." 

"Personally, I incline towards music, but if repair could be affected by company," Miss Giles said, heartened, "You would be welcome. I'm not a believer in the advice of strangers, but moral courage is, I think, sometimes easier found through communion. Refreshment, not absolution."

"You are absolutely right," said Miss Mukherjee, and then, "Although I fear-" Her hand tightened on Miss Giles' arm.

"I would be delighted to discuss music," said Miss Giles, "Or literature, or the weather, over tea and Horlicks."

"That would be...welcome," said Miss Mukherjee.

Miss Giles, feeling herself gently conscious of the same sense of protectiveness she felt for her smaller charges, straightened her back, tipped her chin up, and swept the pair of them up the steps of the hotel. The doorman bowed them inside, the maitre d' snapped to attention, their hats and coats were whisked away and a table procured for them in the window. Beverages, sandwiches and a crowded cake stand were proffered and accepted. The carpet was deep, the linen pristine, and the carefully placed aspidistra a perfect shield. "My dear," said Miss Giles, "Thank you."

"You were listening to the music," Miss Mukherjee said. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you."

"I'm glad of the company," Miss Giles said. "I have found that - well, I have found myself unexpectedly rich in friends, in the last few years, and have been grateful myself. Perhaps the quality of small towns, although I cannot but feel that the essential character of a person is seldom indicative of their habitat. Bach, for example, is a composer for mathematicians."

"You teach?"

"I do," said Miss Giles. "For many years, terribly. I was ill, unhappy, and shamefully cruel. It took a forthright and kind woman to bring me to my senses. Now I find myself exceedingly fond of my pupils, although if one is to send them prepared into the world discipline is also required."

"Of course," said Miss Mukherjee, with a glimmer of humour and the smallest of smiles.

Miss Giles smiled back, as both servers and refreshments arrived, in quantity and perfectly served. For some minutes, the arrangement of plates and the unfolding of napkins, the pouring of the tea and the selection of sandwiches sustained them in perfect harmony. The tension was slowly seeping out of Miss Mukherjee's face, her shoulders less rigid and her movements smoothing into a grace that Miss Giles suspected to be natural. She was aware of a cautious harmony in the acknowledgement of shared rituals, but also, she thought, a fledgling sense of companionship.

"I have a small school," Miss Giles said, "In a small and beautiful house. I have my own sitting room, and my own fire. Over the past few months, I've been revising the mathematics I used to study, for one of my old pupils is applying to Girton, and if I can offer her a better chance I will."

"Girton," said Miss Mukherjee. "I'm glad to hear it." She had nibbled at her first sandwich, but the second had been easier, and she was in the process of selecting her third. "I'm a doctor."

"Oh!" said Miss Giles, and then, "Forgive my surprise. My own family were traditional in their view of a woman's role. That must be a remarkable career."

"I love my work," Miss Mukherjee said. 

"Indeed," said Miss Giles encouragingly. 

"And yet," said Miss Mukherjee, "There are occasions on which - when - the moral equivalency of-" She broke off, frowning at the window, and then at her plate. “Medicine is the study of cause and effect," she said. "Where medicine fails, it is because our knowledge fails, not because the process fails."

Miss Giles laid down her knife, and folded her hands. Miss Mukherjee produced, with effort, a fleeting smile. "These are very good sandwiches," she offered, and cut one into four pieces. 

"The hardest thing I have ever done is admit I had failed," said Miss Giles, "I will never know how much damage I caused by that failure, yet at the time I would have blamed anyone or anything other than myself. I am not saying this, you understand, by way of assigning blame to yourself, but to mention that our view of events can be subject to change." 

"Perhaps distance may provide a different perspective," Miss Mukherjee said. "Although at the moment the subject is painful."

"I imagine the dilemmas of medicine as injurious to the mind as to the body," said Miss Giles. "I'd suggest another sandwich. There is a lot to be said for the careful nourishment of the inner woman."

"You make a very good point," said Miss Mukherjee, and managed the last of the sandwich on her plate as well as the first of the scones. "Thank you," she added, embarking on her second, her colour returned to a healthier tan from sallow and her hands steady. "The steadying effects of good nutrition. I do feel better."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Miss Giles. "I have found there is a great deal to be said for kindness, to oneself, as well as others."

She would have been unsurprised to receive a skeptical glance over the crumbs of the sandwich plate. But Miss Mukherjee was evidently considering the matter. The thought was, suddenly, terrifying, for who was she to opine on the affairs of others? She was reminded yet again of John's ability to listen, and not talk.

"My advice has not often been wise," she offered. 

"But your kindness has been," said Miss Mukherjee. "And your restraint. Thank you."

There was enough time, after an exchange of addresses, for Foyles, where Miss Giles spent a contented hour and half and emerged with one or two more volumes than she had planned on purchasing. It was not every day, after all, that she became an heiress, and on the strength of it she bought a dress-length of printed cotton for Annie, almost pre-war quality, and then before she could second-think herself a real extravagance, an good fountain pen, for goodness only knew what had happened to her father's. Such sentimental recklessness meant that she left the city later than she had planned, so that the train rattled through the soft twilight and then into darkness. Miss Giles, in her window seat, read through the evening. It had been a day, she thought, of unanticipated events, and while she could only hope that she had acquitted herself with purpose, the knowledge of how far she had come in the last few years was a comfort. She wished Miss Mukherjee well, and hoped for her peace of mind. John, perhaps, would have said she prayed, but for Miss Giles the vocabulary of religious faith was unforgivably nebulous. 

In friendship, though, she could trust. As she came off the train and spied the vicarage car pulling up, miraculously in the right place at exactly the right time, Miss Giles discovered herself to be smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for absence: I'll be without internet when this story posts. If anyone would like to comment, it'll take a week or so before I'm online and can answer, but I'd be glad to discuss Miss Giles or Elizabeth Goudge.


End file.
